Sense of Touch
by pellucid
Summary: He doesn't touch her because he's afraid he won't be able to let go. Mac/Stella


Author's Notes: Set just prior to and during 5.24 "Grounds for Deception"; spoilers up to and including that ep. Many thanks, as ever, to gabolange for the beta.

This is my first foray into writing these characters, and, it must be admitted, my first attempt to write something I'd classify as "fluffy" in a number of years. Hopefully I've not made too big a mess on either front. But perhaps unsurprisingly, "Grounds for Deception" pushed a button, and when I couldn't find exactly the sort of gap-filler/post-ep fic I was looking for, I thought I'd give writing it myself a go.

**

She touches him. There have been months, full years even, in which she's the only one who does. There are handshakes, altercations with suspects, the inevitable rush hour press of bodies on the A train, but few aside from Stella who touch him with affection. She drops a hand on his shoulder, hooks an arm around his elbow, hugs him, kisses his cheek, hovers inside his personal space, all with dependable regularity. It isn't sexual, but it is very human: a reminder that they're both alive, that they care for one another.

He notices, of course. He's always noticed, and as soon as he does he forcibly cuts off all his prodigious powers of analysis. He can't afford to think about how much he depends on her touch, how her hand brushing his grounds him, or how her hugs have more than once been his strongest tether to this world. He tries not to push people away, but neither does he let them get too close. Too close is full of intoxicating promise and giddy joy, until suddenly the smell of burning lingers in your nostrils for weeks, and the smoke burns your eyes when it hurts too badly to cry.

But if he were truly honest with himself, he'd have to admit that it's not even the possibility of losing Stella that scares him the most. Loss, at least, is familiar (he doesn't think about the way his subconscious has allied the idea of losing his partner with the reality of losing his wife). What would truly terrify him, if he let himself think about it, is how much he needs her.

Two weeks after his goddaughter is born, he lets Stella convince him to go with her to babysit for a couple of hours so the new parents can get some time to themselves. Mac is washing up Danny and Lindsay's dishes as a favor when Stella comes in the kitchen holding the sleeping baby.

"You know, that kid's going to grow up in the lab," Mac comments, trying to affect a tone of irritated resignation but knowing his grin betrays him. He dries his hands and crosses the room, pulling the blanket back from Lucy's face to look at her. "Sure, you're all cute now, but when you're old enough to run around messing up my evidence, we might have to ban you," he teases.

"Don't you listen to Uncle Mac," Stella says to the baby. "You'll have him wrapped around your little finger."

As if in response, Lucy's fist emerges from the blanket; Mac strokes it and allows her to capture his fingertip in her tiny hand. Stella grins. He brushes the fingers of his other hand across Lucy's forehead.

He thinks about something he read once about babies requiring touch. It's a need as basic as food or shelter; without human contact, they die. Lucy's eyes open sleepily and focus on Stella, who smiles.

"Hi, baby girl," she whispers and leans down to kiss the baby, her cheek pressing briefly against Mac's fingers.

Mac feels a sudden stab of grief for the child Stella was. He wonders for the first time how a child so lacking in affection could grow up to be as tactile as Stella. He moves his hand from the baby to Stella's shoulder, and she looks up at him. Her smile is a little questioning, with a hint of vulnerability he suspects only he can read.

"She's going to be spoiled rotten," he says, nodding at Lucy, whose eyes have drifted closed again.

Stella laughs softly. "Good."

Before he can analyze the action, he wraps an arm around Stella's shoulders, kisses her hair, and vows to start touching her back.

**

Touching her is more difficult than he would have expected. It's not that he doesn't remember to do so. In some ways, that is the problem. He is always aware of her: the way she sashays through the halls of the lab with her dancer's walk, her methodical work at a scene, her habit of standing just a little closer to him than anyone else, her long fingers curling around a coffee cup. For years he's devoted a carefully rationed moment of each day to the thought of touching her—brushing her arm with his as they walk through the hallway, placing his hand on the small of her back as he follows her though a doorway, hugging her as he says goodnight—but he is careful to cut off that train of thought before it starts, and he certainly never acts on these impulses. He tells himself that he's just not a tactile person, that not touching her has become a habit, but even when he's most forcibly repressing introspection, he knows these are lies. He doesn't touch her because he's afraid he won't be able to let go.

But the morning after they babysat Lucy, he brings Stella coffee and slides his fingers across hers as he hands her the cup. She smiles, and he thinks, _okay_.

Two days later they're working a particularly difficult case—dead kids are the worst, and there are no leads, and with Lindsay and Danny out on parental leave the rest of them are running ragged—and she hugs him in his office at 4:00 am. She touches him, the usual pattern, but he lets himself hug back longer and tighter than he normally does. He closes his eyes and turns his face into her neck and lets it rest there for just a moment.

He's just starting to get used to this new order of things when the whole Kolovos thing happens. If he never finds her address on another dead body it will be too soon, and yes, he's angry, but even as they're yelling at each other he knows it's because he's terrified of something happening to her. So he finds himself on a plane, chasing her to Greece. When he gets there he's either going to yell at her or grab her and never let go; he hasn't decided which.

Ultimately, he does neither, falling instead on familiar distance for their professional and public reunion. He tells her about her mother in the middle of a public street, allegedly, he tells himself, because he wants to tell her as soon as possible. But he trusts them in public, trusts that he won't hold on too tightly (just a reassuring hand on her shoulder, not too long), trusts that she won't cry (her eyes go all moist, but she doesn't cry in front of people—not even him).

Except that later she cries like he's never seen her cry before, the professor's blood on her hands, and Mac pulls her into his arms and tells himself that this time it's okay if he never lets go.

**

Sorting out the deaths in the orchard takes endless hours. They take Stella's statement twice and his three times, and then Stella's again in Greek when they realize she speaks the language. His gun is confiscated with the promise that it will be returned as soon as it's ascertained that the forensics support their story. Mac almost laughs.

He can't stop touching her now, his hand on her elbow or the small of her back, his arm bumping against hers as they walk. He knows he's hovering, but Stella lets him, and when they're finally released and get in the car back to Thessaloniki, she reaches across the console to hold his hand for the duration of the trip.

They order food back to the hotel and sit, too close together, on the bed in her room to eat it. Stella finds a station showing one of the _Die Hard_ movies in English and curls into his side as they watch. His arm comes around her; holding her has become as natural as breathing within the space of an afternoon. He always knew it would be like this if he gave in.

He's more surprised that Stella's not pushing him away. She touches him, she cares about him, but she's also more fiercely independent than anyone he's ever known. Usually she distances herself when she's feeling vulnerable. He remembers after Frankie, and after the fire, when she rebuffed his offers of help and pulled herself back together in her own way. She's been taking care of herself her whole life, and she's good at it. She's also good at taking care of others: she mothers the team, reassures victims and their families, and Mac is certain he wouldn't be alive today if she hadn't spent the past decade taking care of him. But she doesn't accept care from others easily. Except that tonight she's letting him hover, letting him touch her and hold her, and he's not quite sure what's changed. She hasn't said much, and he doesn't want to push her.

By the time Bruce Willis has defeated the terrorists and saved the day, Stella is leaning heavily against him, her breathing even and regular. Mac tries not to disturb her as he reaches for the remote and shuts off the television. He should slip out, return to his own room, but he knows he won't.

"He said he loved her," she says suddenly. She's not asleep after all, though she makes no attempt to move. "The professor, when he was dying. He said he loved my mother. Do you—you don't think he could be my father, do you? Surely he would have told me."

"I don't know," he answers truthfully. "We have his DNA back at the lab. We could run it against yours, if you want." He hopes she doesn't want to know. Or that they run it and the professor is no relation. Just a smitten colleague of her mother's. As though there's any "just" about that.

Mac is running his fingers up and down her upper arm, and he's startled to realize he didn't notice he was doing it. Touching her unconsciously is an entirely new level of danger.

"It's just, even if he's not my father, if he loved her—even if they were just friends—" she falters, and he cranes his neck to see her face where it rests against his chest. "I mean, God forbid, but if something ever happened to Danny and Lindsay, we'd take care of Lucy, right?"

"Of course," he answers without hesitation, forcing himself not to dwell on her use of "we."

"Really take care of her," Stella continues. "Take her in, raise her, love her like parents. Not just drop in to visit from time to time at the orphanage or mark milestones with gifts of stolen artwork." Her voice breaks a little, and he feels his shirt going damp beneath her cheek.

"Oh, Stella," he says thickly, pulling her closer. If Papakota weren't dead, Mac might be tempted to kill him himself.

"He knew and he never told me, Mac. He lied to me in so many ways." Her hands clutch at his shirt. "I want to hate him, but he was the closest I've ever had to family. He's the only person who's known me my entire life, yet all that time…"

He doesn't know what to say, so he just holds on. She holds on to him, as well, tighter than she ever has, and he wonders if touching her first was all it took. This isn't the first time her life has threatened to fall apart, but it's the first time he's reached out to catch her like this. It's probably the first time _anyone_ has caught her, ever, and that thought makes him tighten his grip so much that he worries she can't breathe. Or that she'll be scared away by his blatant need.

"Sorry," he whispers, forcing himself to relax his hold. "I don't mean to smother you."

He feels her smile against his neck. "You're not," she answers, squeezing him tighter to make her point. "I'm really glad you're here, Mac. Thank you."

"We take care of each other," he says, handing her own words back to her as he leans down to kiss the top of her head. "There's nowhere else I'd be, Stella."

She sits up and smiles, disentangling one hand from his shirt and raising it to his cheek. He's almost startled by how beautiful she is, even with her face red and tear-stained and her hair a mess. Perhaps he notices now, really notices, because he's not forcing himself to check that line of thought. He's crossed enough lines tonight that a few more won't matter, so he takes her beauty and turns it over and over in his mind like some newly-discovered treasure. She's his dearest friend and she's _beautiful_.

"You know, I was thinking," he says, "we could go to Naoussa, if you want. It's not far. Maybe you could find out more about your mother."

She looks startled, and her hand drops from his face. He catches it with his own hand. "I might have family," she says, a little awestruck. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth, silent for a long moment. "You know the stereotype of the Greek family?" she begins. "_My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ and all that? I was always jealous of that. If Greek people are supposed to have these big, nosy families, where was mine? But if my mother had a family, if they're here—" Her face is growing panicked rather than excited as she breaks off and takes a deep breath. "I don't know, Mac. I think I need some time to process. Right now I think I just want to go home," she admits.

"Okay," he says, pulling her in for another hug. "We'll go home."

"But maybe we can come back again sometime." Her breath is warm against her neck. "I'd like to show you Athens. And we could go to Naoussa."

"I'd like that," he replies, smiling against her hairline before kissing her temple.

"Mac?" Her voice is softer, a little uncertain. "I—would you—" She takes a breath. "Stay, please?"

He startles himself with how quickly his reply comes. "Of course," he says, before he can begin to think, his lips moving against her forehead. He should be panicking. He's spent years keeping his distance, and he's torn down all the walls in one day. He wonders if Stella is panicking, Stella with her space and independence and rules about no men in her home. She doesn't seem to be, as she settles herself more comfortably against him and tucks an ankle between his.

"G'night, Mac," she murmurs, and he lets himself think he could get used to this. His last thought before falling asleep is that he hasn't felt this peaceful in more than eight years.

**

The next day feels like the most normal day of his life, despite being filled with things he's never done before. Stella wakes him, teasing that he probably hasn't slept this late in years. She's right—he hasn't. She's wearing a bathrobe, and her damp curls spill across his neck. He needs to get dressed, she says, because Temmas called, and they're free to go as soon as they sign the reports and pick up Mac's gun.

She's digging in her suitcase, and he's halfway to the bathroom before it occurs to him, amidst the utter normality of waking up with Stella, that he's actually the luckiest bastard alive, and he shouldn't take that for granted. He turns her around, pulls her into his arms, and kisses her. It's gentle and tentative before growing more passionate as his hands weave into her hair and hers fist up in his t-shirt. It's everything and nothing like he's imagined kissing her to be.

"Hi." Her grin is reassuring and familiar, and it makes him go weak in the knees. This is iStella/i, he realizes, and he wishes he had time to hold on to her for a few hours while he digests that fact.

"Hi," he replies. He knows he's got a grin to match hers. "Is this okay?" he asks, just to be sure.

She kisses him again. "More than okay. Now go get ready; we're due to see Temmas in half an hour, and our flight leaves at eleven."

On the plane, she threads her fingers through his after the meal is cleared away and doesn't let go again until they're on the ground at Kennedy. He reads, and she watches the in-flight movie and sleeps, and as he traces the veins in her hand and the scars on her fingers, he realizes he's not going to panic. He knows the risks—knows them better than most people ever will—and as he listens to her even breathing as she sleeps on his shoulder, he knows it's worth it.

Because everything and nothing has changed for them, they go straight from the airport to work. Just to catch up with paperwork until they succumb to jet lag. He's about to go find her a few hours later when she shows up in his office with Greek coffee.

"We didn't get to do this when we were in Greece," she explains. "You need to get the hang of it for next time." She flashes him a grin.

She reads his grounds with the perfect combination of sincerity and audacity, and he doesn't hide his approval of her use of the definite article. _The_ woman in his life.

"You want dinner?" he asks. They have dinner together at least twice a week, but it's different now.

"Sure," she answers with a smile. He takes her hand.


End file.
